


nota familia

by shineonloki



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Bonding, It's Odin, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Oops, Shapeshifting, Sibling Incest, So does anyone really care?, Witches and Familiars, magical orgasm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 03:48:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15573072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineonloki/pseuds/shineonloki
Summary: Loki has given up the idea of finding a familiar to bond with.Until the day his brother shows up.





	nota familia

**Author's Note:**

> I’m contemplating the idea of writing a few more short works in this verse. As always, thank you for any feedback. It means the world to me! 
> 
> You can also find me at:  
> www.shineonloki.tumblr.com

A green light beneath his palm flickered into life, sparking at the burner beneath the flask, before puttering out of existence. Loki leaned back into his creaky office chair, hands on his head, sighing of both distress and annoyance.

“Nerves,” he explained out loud, like talking to himself wasn’t the first step on his mental spiral downwards.

He knew it wasn’t true, just another lie told to soothe his growing concerns. The truth was— and Loki _knew_ the truth— he was approaching his twenty-sixth birthday. All in all, this fact wasn’t necessarily a threatening one but, Loki, he was a witch.

An unbonded witch, creeping up in age; the worst kind to be.

Magic was a fickle thing. It could herald great power, great chaos, and—best of all—it could keep his coffee the perfect temperature all day long. Unfortunately, it came at a cost, like most of life’s best things so often did. For a witch to truly wield the true extent of their magic, they needed a familiar.

The bond between a witch and their familiar was sacred and unbreaking—a bond made for life and death, intimate and special. After a witch came of age, the search for a familiar began, with each passing year dampening their magic until there was none left.

Loki knew why he couldn’t do something as simple as light a stupid burner. Still, it was much easier to blame it on nerves, especially with his father’s recent passing. Emotional distress was a perfectly valid reason for magical failings.

Only, he knew this was also a _lie_. And, Loki, at best, was a fantastic liar— even to himself.

\--

His father’s passing had caused him no dramatic inner-turmoil or grief. In fact, he had barely blinked with his dry eyes when his mother called him. Attending the funeral had been out of respect and if Loki was being honest— and he rarely was— he missed his mother and brother. Odin had never accepted him, or so he felt. He was never a son, just a bastard child brought in as the family burden.

He had stood awkwardly beside the casket next to them. Their mother had wept into his brother’s shoulder easily. Loki, on the other hand, presented a gruff cough instead of words and a disconnected pat on the back. Thor just had that charm about him, he was always the first to offer comfort, warm, easy to lean into.

Though, Loki supposed, that was the perk of being a familiar.  

His mother, Frigga, had begged him to stay the weekend but he politely declined. Thor had pulled him into a tight hug— in which Loki’s hands twitched at his sides, not returning it— and told him he understood.

What it was he apparently understood, Loki wasn’t sure.

So, he had returned to the city, single suitcase in hand, to his shabby apartment above the apothecary and crawled beneath his scratchy quilts still in his funeral suit. It was only there, alone in the dark silence, that he allowed himself to cry. The tears, he found, weren’t for his father— but for himself.

\--

His office in the apothecary was small and cramped, lined from ceiling to floor with dusty tomes that held spells he would probably never use— waning talents or not. The spaces that weren’t occupied with books were filled to the brim with bottles and vials of colorful glass. It was all very _vintage-witch-chic_ , but the charm annoyed Loki to a certain extent.

When he first purchased the building— leaving only dust-bunnies and flies in his wallet— there was an attempt to make the storefront more modern, like he’d seen on his guilty-pleasure television shows. However, he soon discovered he had no patience for interior design and his non-magic patrons loved the novelty of hanging plants and cluttered oddities.

Unfortunately for him, most of his customers were of the non-magic kind. They liked to buy trinkets and potions from a real witch to show off to their friend—completely unaware that said witch was growing to be more like them every day.

He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting when he left his small hometown. Perhaps, in some fantasy, a handsome man would walk into his shop and they would brush hands when the stranger paid for his bundle of sage, a spark would go off and they would lock eyes and Loki would know, right then, that he had found his familiar. The rest, well, that was a different fantasy for lonelier nights.

And, if the fantasy stranger held a certain look— well, Loki couldn’t help if he had a type.

It hadn’t happened like that. No, Loki left his top-floor apartment every day to stomp down the narrow staircase leading to the apothecary. He would jam the key into the door, jiggling it just a little while pulling the knob to the right to prevent a jam, and inside everything would be the same.

It always was.

Until, one Thursday, when it wasn’t.

\--

There was a large, fluffy cat lounging languidly on the front desk—curled into a tight ball, snoozing away with no care of the orange fur shedding onto Loki’s countertop.

He knew that insufferable cat.

Quietly, Loki tiptoed to its sleeping form, conjured water on his fingertips, and flicked them towards the feline intruder.

As expected, the light shower of water jolted the cat from his lazy slumber, sending it scattering back with a hiss, sending papers and vials flying as he jumped behind the desk.

Loki smiled triumphantly before training his expression into something more stoic— but, unable to keep the smug smirk from pulling at his lips.

“What are you doing here, Thor?”

Instead of a cat, his brother rose from behind the counter, looking every bit as flustered as his familiar form. Loki also noted, he looked like complete shit. His golden hair was pulled back, but it was obvious it was limp and just a little too dirty to be purposeful, his beard had grown scruffy since the funeral, and there were the hints of bags beneath his eyes.

“I can’t visit my little brother?”

He could, Loki supposed, but he doubted it was that simple. Thor hadn’t visited him since he left.

“Okay, let me rephrase,” Loki drawled, crossing his arms and cocking his hips just slightly. “What do you want?”

“I can’t want to visit my little brother?”

“You haven’t wanted to so far,” Loki snapped, a little too harshly, and Thor had the audacity to look taken-back. “Three years, Thor.”

It wasn’t as if he had been counting, it was just—

“I thought you needed space and I knew,” Thor trailed off, not bothering to finish his sentence like Loki had any inkling as to what he was talking about. He had never said he needed space. Not in so many words, at least.

“Knew what?” It was probably inhumane how much Loki enjoyed provoking his brother.

Thor’s eyes skirted around the apothecary nervously, and— Loki should really tell him to get from behind the counter before a customer walked in.

His brother sighed, giving up whatever internal struggle he was having. “I didn’t want to get in the way of you finding a familiar. I know you’re still unbonded— “

Loki stared at him slack-jawed. Forget ordering him to get out from behind the counter— he should tell him to just _get out_.

“I’m fine,” Loki growled, shoving himself towards the little alcove in the corner that led to his office. Thor, of course, followed him like, _ironically_ , a puppy.

Loki chose to ignore him and instead, flung his satchel off and snuggled into his horrid office chair with a rigidness that could only be described as _over-dramatic_. In front of him, his brother stood shifting from foot to foot and flexing his right hand in and out of a fist. It was an old habit that Loki knew all too well. And, damn, if it wasn’t endearing.

“I worry about you,” said Thor quietly into the musky air of the office.

“You shouldn’t,” Loki lied.

“I do.”

“Would you like to know what you _don’t_ do?” Loki bit out bitterly. “You _don’t_ know when to quit.”

Thor smiled at that and Loki tried to ignore the brightness of it.

\--

It seemed that shooing Thor away was harder than he anticipated. He had stayed the duration of the apothecary’s business hours and helped Loki close shop. He swept the floors, dusted the shelves, and rearranged the potion ingredients into alphabetical order.

Loki would never in a million years admit it out loud but, it was nice to have both help and company.

Now they sat uncomfortably on Loki’s tiny sofa eating take-out; Thor with his feet propped on the coffee table and Loki with his knees leaned so far away from his brother that they were practically one with the armrest.

“This is pretty good,” Thor commented, breaking the silence, with his mouth obscenely full. “A little cold though.”

Loki’s fingers twitched at his side and he cast a heating spell in Thor’s direction. He made sure to keep the gesture small, in case it wouldn’t work. He didn’t want his brother to start _worrying_ about him.

“Hey! Thanks!” Thor grinned around his fork.

Loki suppressed his small smile with a bite of food.

\--

“So, what’s the deal?”

Loki stopped brushing his teeth long enough to eye Thor in the mirror. He was hovering in the bathroom doorway, leaned against the doorframe, feigning nonchalance.  

Loki spat into the cracked porcelain sink and wiped the toothpaste residue from his mouth, shrugging in response.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

He really did.

“Are you just not looking or are you just that picky?”

Anger replaced his annoyance, and he spun around to face his brother, bracing his hands on the sink behind him. Thor was watching him with a careful, calm expression. Still, it did nothing to soothe the building rage.

“It’s not that simple,” Loki snarled through his clenched teeth. How could Thor understand the complicated intricacies of finding a familiar? He could remain unbonded for the rest of his life and be fine— he had no internal clock— he would never be stripped of the one thing that made him who he was.

“Brother,” Thor sighed, but his voice was gentle. He reached out, hesitating slightly, and clasped a tender hand on the side of Loki’s neck. It was such a comforting and familiar gesture, Loki couldn’t help but lean into it to relish the warmth it brought. “You’re getting weaker, I can feel it.”

Loki was too tired to deny it. And, anyway, what was the point?

“I’ll be fine,” the words are whispered, and it doesn’t sound convincing even to his own ears. “Even with my magic gone, I’ll still be Loki.”

Thor smiled at him, soft and sad, stroking his thumb along the pulse of his neck.

“I’ll still be your brother,” Loki added, voice cracking and eyes threatening to spill with tears.

Instantly, large arms engulfed him, pulling him into a tight hug. They stood for what felt like forever embracing in the tiny bathroom with the flickering lightbulb.

Thor pressed a chaste kiss into his hairline and whispered, “I know,” into Loki’s dark, swept-back curls.

\--

Thor took the couch without any protest. Loki had even insisted he take the bed because his brother was comically too large for the alternative.

In the end, Loki retreated to his own room and huddled beneath his quilt. It was strange, in the normally absolute silence, he swore he could hear Thor’s heartbeat.

Then, a realization.

Loki sat up and blinked into the darkness, a frown pulling at his lips.

_“You’re getting weaker, I can feel it.”_

\--

Something was off.

He watched his brother from his perch at the front desk. Thor was sweeping, again— and Loki was almost embarrassed with how much dust the place had. Almost. His embarrassment was quelled the fact Thor had managed to dig up an apron to wear.

“You look like Cinderella,” Loki called, eyes on his brother and _not_ on the small potion he was brewing; even with his decreasing magic, potions were still something he could handle, even if they weren’t as potent.

From across the room, Thor glanced over his shoulder to give him a cheeky smile that made heat rise to Loki’s cheeks. He busied himself by grinding the leaves with a little more force than necessary.

“Little brother! Does that mean you want to take me to the ball?”

The concoction in the mortar and pestle in front of Loki exploded into a puff of pink smoke.

\--

It wasn’t that Loki hadn’t tried to connect. He had even gone through the uncomfortable trouble of signing up for a service to match witches and familiars. It was disappointing, to say the least.

He never felt that catalytic sensation that he knew was needed to make the bond.

Loki had begun to think he was broken, destined to fizzle out into sad humanity.

Maybe that was just his fate— cruel as it was.

\--

“Where does mother think you are?”

Thor looked up from his bowl of cereal with a quizzical expression before rolling his shoulders in a shrug. He had been sleeping on Loki’s sofa for over a week. There was no way Frigga wasn’t missing her golden child.

“She knows I’m here.”

“Oh,” Loki petulantly responded. He looked down into his own bowl, twirling the spoon to make cinnamon swirls in the milk.

“She misses you,” Thor quietly added, like he was walking on eggshells. Though, it was probably for good reason— Loki had been on edge.

“She could come see me,” Loki replied stubbornly. Thor frowned, and Loki cut him off before he could say anything. “I know, I know. You were both giving me space.”

Thor stared into his bowl, brows knit together in concentration.

“You could come home.”

Loki gave a mirthless chuckle.

“I am _home_ ,” he retorted. Only, he didn’t find himself connecting the word to the drab apartment— but rather to the person across the table.

 

\--

It’s the middle of the second week when Thor starts to complain about the couch.

“My back is killing me,” Thor groaned, making a great show of rubbing his back and stretching. “That thing isn’t made for normal-sized people.”

“It is,” Loki chided. “You just happen to be abnormally large.”

Thor raised his eyebrows, giving him a pointed look. It took a moment for Loki to realize the innuendo, which had his face burning.

“Shut up and come here,” he grumbled, and Thor did so obediently.

Loki slipped a hand under the hem of his brother’s soft cotton shirt. His fingers skirted along the hard muscle Thor’s lower back, an electricity sparking beneath his fingertips. Beneath his touch, Thor stilled, and Loki’s heart pounded.

He coughed to clear the air. “Where does it hurt?”

Loki’s hand roamed the expanse of Thor’s back until his brother gave a small, curt nod as a signal. Closing his eyes, Loki reached out with his magic, soothing the ache of the muscles beneath his hand.

Thor let out a sigh of relief and turned, Loki’s hand staying firmly on his lower back. They stood, eyes locked, green and blue, and for the first time, Loki noticed how much _better_ Thor looked. The bags under his eyes were gone, his hair was shining and pulled back into a low bun, his cheeks were full of color— he looked healthy.

His pulse quickened. Thor was still looking at him with an expression that couldn’t be read. Curious, maybe. 

Loki is the first to pull away— to break the trance. He snatched his hand back, cradled to his chest, like it had been burned. Thor follows suit, taking a step back and falling back into his nervous habit of clenching and unclenching his fist.

“If you’re going to stay, I guess we can get you a bed.”

Thor is silent for a long time.

“Yeah,” he finally answered, but Loki can tell he is a million miles away.

\--

Sometime during the night, Loki feels a weight padding up his legs— he reaches out to find fur. With one eye cracked open, he can make out the silhouette of Thor’s familiar form. The weight settled on his chest, curled up in a wrap of thick, fluffy tail. Loki reached out to give sleepy strokes against Thor’s head— under his palm, he feels a low rumble of a purr.

Engulfed in a warmth that his old quilt could never give, Loki fell back asleep.

\--

Three days later, Loki tinkered with the burner that had been abandoned on the corner of his cluttered desk. The green flame is ignited almost instantly. He doesn’t even remember what he needed it for.

\--

Two days after that, Mrs. Morris barged in to complain that the sleeping drought she purchased was too potent. Her husband had slept for three days.

\--

The next day, Loki woke up too late to shower. He calmly ran his fingers through his dark hair, softening the locks into clean curls.

\--

The day after that, Loki woke to Thor sleeping beside him— six feet and three inches of tan skin and muscle. It wasn’t the first time he found his brother in his bed, but it was the first time he wasn’t in his familiar form.

As if acting on instinct, Loki reached out to smooth his fingers over the bared flesh of his arm. It was strange, he used to envy Thor for his ungodly perfection. Now—

Loki swallowed dryly. 

Lying to himself had always been so easy, but this unexpected truth was threatening that.

His fingers brushed over a bruise close to Thor’s elbow. It was a tiny blemish on the otherwise smooth skin. Loki rubbed at it with his thumb and, as if wiping off a smudge on the glass, it was gone.

Weeks ago, he couldn’t even spark a flame.

Loki carefully removed himself from the bed, tiptoeing to the bathroom and running the shower cold.

\--

They take Sunday off to enjoy the town. If Loki was being honest, he _needed_ to get out from the confines of both the apartment and apothecary. Thor, of course, is ecstatic and it made Loki realize that he hasn’t even got to experience the city.

Loki takes him to see a movie. It’s a horrid romantic comedy about a witch falling in love with a human. They are the only people in the showing and they pass the time by mocking the cheesy lines and tossing popcorn at the screen.

On their way home, they stop at a corner café to get lunch. As Loki paid for their meal, their waitress swooned over the cash register and gushed about how _nice_ it is that he found a familiar that adored him that much. She proceeded to finish the transaction with a dreamy smile, telling him that they gave her hope. Loki smiled politely if only to hide the grimace.

He didn’t correct her. He didn’t tell her that it was his brother.

\--

Later that night, dinner is prepared in the kitchen and Loki concocted an experiment.

It had been years since he had the capability to summon an object to his hand— it was one of his favorite things to do as a teenager and when he felt the ability slip, he had been devastated for weeks.

Thor stood over the stove, stirring the boiling pasta occasionally. He looked so peaceful, happy even. Loki tried to sear the image into his brain in case his plan went horribly wrong.

He leaned against the counter, strumming his fingers against it in a frantic, rhythmic tap. Thor continued to stir. He pushed himself off the counter and began to pace the kitchen. Thor dutifully stirred on. He stopped behind Thor, clearing his throat loudly. Thor, finally, stopped stirring to give Loki a confused look.

Loki swallowed his fear.

“I need to test something,” he announced.

He'd kiss Thor, sweet and simple, and then conjure a knife to cut the onions.

Thor raised an eyebrow, sat down the wooden spoon, and turned around. God, he was wearing that ridiculous apron.

“What—”

In a moment of fleeting bravery, Loki pressed forward and sealed their lips together. Thor made a shocked noise beneath the muffle of lips and raised his hands and, in that moment, Loki is terrifyied they are about to push him away. They don’t, they grab ahold of his sweater and pull him closer.

Thor parted his lips, opening himself to Loki and it’s like the dam holding back weeks— _years_ — of tension breaks. A flood of raw energy is released, and Loki feels it burn him from the inside.

Drunk off the rush of adrenaline, Loki almost doesn’t register Thor walking him back until he is flat against the wall. Its only then that he pulls away and Loki can’t help but chase his mouth with his own. His brother’s lips are spit-slicked and glistening and it takes everything within him not to bite.

Thor stared at him, and Loki should feel unnerved, but he only feels _wanting_. Need.

He needs Thor to say something.

As if on command: “How do you feel?”

 _Wrong_ , he should say. This is his brother. No—Loki knows now, this is his _familiar_.

So, for once he opts for the truth.

“Powerful,” the word is growled between them by Loki, surging up and claiming Thor— _his Thor_ — for his own.

“Bold,” Loki punctuated it with a nip to his brother’s bottom lip. He felt the grip on his shoulder’s tightened and Loki smiled into the curve of Thor’s grin.

Since it was an apparent night for honesty, Loki decided to go all out. He slid his hands down Thor’s sides, then back up, under the thin material of his lounge shirt. He pressed forward, slotting their bodies together, feeling Thor grow hard against his thigh. He threw his head back at the sensation, his own jeans becoming uncomfortably tight.

“ _Loved_ ,” he mouthed against soft lips, rutting upwards as Thor choked out a sob— dropping his head onto Loki’s shoulder.

“Loki—”

Thor dropped his hands to Loki’s hips, reaching down to hike up his legs, lifting to pin him between his body and the wall. Instinctively, Loki wrapped his legs around Thor’s waist, pushing up to gain more desperate friction.

“Yes?” Loki breathed out, but it was hard to concentrate, much less speak, when Thor was pressing sloppy, wet kisses down the side of his neck.

“Bond with me,” Thor breathed hotly into the sensitive skin above Loki’s collarbone. “Make me yours.”

He wants to say _: You already are. You always have been._

But, his tongue is rendered useless as a powerful surge of magic pulses through him. It’s searing, pleasurable on the edge of painful. It’s the most bizarre feeling Loki had ever felt; as if a piece of him weaved its way through Thor.

They sealed the bonding ritual with a frenzied kiss of clashing teeth and tongue. The sensation of powerful magic returned to him, the feeling of kinship, the feeling of love, the feeling of his brother’s hands clinging to his body— it was too much. 

He spilled between them, without ever unbuttoning his pants— without ever being properly touched.

As the magic ebbed away, his head slowly regained its senses.

He had bonded with Thor.

He had bonded with _his brother._

He wasn’t disgusted.

Thor looked at him with an expression so soft, he could never regret it.

 Loki shifted in his hold, a silent request to be let down— Thor obeyed. Once his feet returned to the ground he snaked his arms around his brother’s— _his familiar’s_ — torso. He pressed a leg forward to find Thor soft between his thighs. Loki smirked, at least he didn’t have to be embarrassed about how much he truly enjoyed the ritual.

“Was that okay?” Thor asked, dumbly.

“If not, we are going to have trouble breaking an eternal contract of that caliber.”

Thor frowned, and Loki found he wanted to kiss it away. So, he did. Thor melted against him, and this time they took the time to kiss slow and tender—all the things Loki typically wasn’t. All things he suddenly craved.

They break apart, both panting lightly, and Thor knocks their foreheads together, bringing his hands to cradle the sides of Loki’s face, thumbing at the corner of his smile.

“I think I always knew,” he said. “Did you?”

Loki feels something blossom in his chest and it’s not magic—it’s something organic and new.

“I think that’s why I ran,” he breathed out honesty, inhaled the calming connection between them. It was a string that had always linked them but somehow felt stronger and more defined. Two brothers, intertwined.

Thor doesn’t respond— processing the confession, Loki is sure.

“I won’t run anymore,” he assured Thor, raking a hand through the short blonde strands at the nape of his neck. “I can’t— I’m yours.”


End file.
